Maburaho

Review covers the full series

Any author knows that most male members of the Manga fan-base enjoy looking at pictures of women, even if said women are cartoon characters.

And most authors know that a story has to have a decent plot. However there are many authors out there that have only grasped the first of these two concepts, and they quite often produce works like Maburaho.

There really hasn't been much thought put into making Maburaho different than anything that has come before, so I can classify it by slotting it neatly into the “Harem” pigeon-hole.

There are four main characters; one introverted boy, three attractive and extroverted girls. The three girls have a (rather far fetched) reason for wanting to have sex with the boy, and fight over him every episode.

The old adage that you get out of something what you put into it rings true in Maburaho. The only effort that has been put into the series seems to be with the three girls. Their love interest, all of the the minor cast, the setting of the Manga and the plot of each episode are all dull and unoriginal.

We're even robbed of an introduction. One thing that could have been interesting is explaining how the situation came about and the characters met. But Maburaho starts with them already having met, and opens with a quick “oh, I've woken up with amnesia” episode to give us a recap.

The introductory episode also gives us a big hint as to who the winner of the love square is going to be, which makes reading the rest of the series seem a little pointless as we can already tell what will happen at the end.

About halfway through the second volume I think the author realized that the lack of any plot or progression was a problem, and started to make the plot elements he added last longer than two pages each. But I think it must have been too little too late and mercifully the series seems to have been canned after the second volume.

As interesting as the girls' characters were, they're just not enough to make the whole series interesting enough to really recommend. The only decent thing Maburaho offers is pretty pictures of Manga-style women. And the chances are, if you're reading this then you have access to the internet and no shortage of said pictures.